


Trusting a Gambler

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: I am very intrigued by this ship and would like to sign up for its newsletter, Lovers to Friends, M/M, Reunited lovers, Yearning, friends back to lovers, well-behaved people are adorably full of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 14:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16266326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Luke trusts his heart. Lando gambles with his.A Skyrissian ficlet, full of feelings.





	Trusting a Gambler

Lando is a gambler, and always will be. He can’t help it. It’s part of him, like the sound of his laugh or the way he sneezes when certain furry animals from some planets pass by him. Thankfully, he’s not allergic to wookies.

But he is allergic to taking it too easy, to sitting back and letting life float past him. Life is a thing that should be experienced fully, he’d always thought. That policy has led him to plenty of danger, to many different fine and not-so-fine gambling establishments, and into the arms of a Jedi.

Not that he really realized Luke was one, that first time they’d kissed. He’d heard words like lightsaber and force and destiny shared between Luke and Leia on the Falcon. But they’d been fuzzy, impossible for Lando to really hear, because his own emotions; grief, betrayal, embarrassment, pain, were all too loud.

And somehow, Luke had heard them. Listened to the torrential waves of emotions washing over Lando, and approached him.

“You’re suffering,” Luke said.

“Not as much as you, kid.” He tried to keep the mood light, and maybe it was true. Luke had lost a hand, a friend, and gained a murderous villain of a father. That was one of the worst hands anyone could be dealt, surely. 

“I’m not a kid.”

Lando raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you’re going to argue over.”

“Not an argument. Just a fact.” 

In that tone, Lando hears the truth. Luke isn’t young. Not in heart. Not anymore. “Apologies.”

“Apology accepted if you’ll sit with me. I’ve made some caf.”

Luke nodded at the two cups waiting on the Dejarik table. When they sit, Lando couldn’t help but feel the two were beginning a game, more complex than any round of that holographic one. Instead of moving pieces over squares, they were moving toward… connection.

And, that, Lando knew, was the biggest of gambles. 

Luke poured the caf only a little clumsily with his hand, biting his bottom lip as he did so. Lando accepted it. Han would only have instant caf here, he knew, and even that thought brought a wave of guilt over him. His friend was probably dead, because of him. And here he was, complaining about the quality of the caf Han had bought.

Lando would have traded all the expensive coffiene he’d ever drunk to have Han back here, sitting with them, sipping the terrible sludge in the cup.

Luke said, “your thoughts are troubled.”

“You’d be a damn good card player if that’s your opening line.”

The laughter he wins surprises him. It’s gentle. Warm. Not the sort of laugh one might expect from a legendary hero. Luke smiles at him. “I’m terrible at cards. Always have been.”

“We’ll have to work on that.”

We. Another word that’s a gamble. But Luke, brilliant, kind man he is, only ups the ante. “I’d like that. When things are calmer. I’d like to learn if you’d teach me.”

They kiss that night, long after the caf is finished. Luke kisses shyly, nervous at the contact. So it’s Lando who guides him, moves them back, so that Luke perches on the end of the Dejarik table, surrendering just a bit to Lando’s touch. 

“I’m going to fall over.” Luke laughed nervously, bracing himself on the table with his one hand.

“I won’t let you fall,” Lando said, planting exploratory kisses down the man’s neck, onto his collarbone. “Trust me.”

“I will.” Luke breathed out, his hand coming up to rest against Lando’s chest, over his heart. “I do.”

 

That kiss though, Lando muses, was ages ago. There were more gambles, more kisses, more moments, but more loss too. Neither of them knew what to expect, any time they saw each other. The game is always different. Lando thought he liked it that way.

But there are some gambles even the most skilled player loses, and costs that must be paid. No one can be lucky all the time. No relationship can exist without a little bit of work. No love without risk.

The problem was that Lando, for as much as risk and luck were his constant companions, work was the one thing he was always running from. Never one to struggle through a rough patch, or chip away at an insurmountable problem. He’s in it for the fun, the adventure, the game.

It was Luke who made the final gamble, raised the stakes to a place where Lando simply had to fold. He walked away that day, just as he’d left behind countless casinos. Only this time, it wasn’t his pockets that felt heavier, but his heart.

* * *

  
  


Luke trusts. It’s as simple as that. Trusts in the force, trusts in his friends, trusts that Lando will come back to him.

He trusted him, from that first kiss, from that way Lando had breathed his name against his skin, giving him back to himself, at a time it felt like all he knew of himself was a myth. Luke held those memories, of the brush of a mustached face against his tender neck, of the particular scent of Lando’s cologne, of the gentle hands exploring skin still so new to affection, throughout all the dark times. Luke trusted, even on Endor, even after, that he would see Lando again. That they’d make it through the next battle.

That they’d make it.

Even as time goes on, and the missions get longer, the visits more infrequent, Luke still believed.

They had different goals, after the war. That was true. Building a new universe is harder to do than destroying an empire. As he worked to rebuild the Jedi order, Luke just had to trust that his friends, his family even, will do their part to set the world to right.

But when he trusted Lando to say yes, when he’d asked for all he’d dreamed of to come true… the trust had fallen away.

Lando had left.

For good that time. They hadn’t made it after all, and Luke’s heart was one small last casualty of war.

Time goes on. Luke learns to trust again. He doesn’t take lovers, not now. Maybe the old Jedi way was better. Maybe trust should never be something that is shared that deeply with someone else. Better to trust friends and family, not to trust the passion of a kiss. 

Around the time that Leia and Han are discussing if Ben should be taught by him, things change. Only slightly. 

It’s as simple as hearing his voice in the background of the comm channel, him calling to Han to see if he’s free. That warm voice, softly accented with a flair Luke has never heard from anyone else, is enough to re-ignite flames that he’d thought long gone.

Once it’s clear Lando and Han have both left, he asks his sister, “so he’s back?”

“For a little while.” She sighs as if the weight of more than just the new government rests on her shoulders. “You know how those rogues are. Dependable until they’re not.”

“Leia. Talk to Han. If he’s slipping away…”

“I know, I know.” She snaps at him. “It’s not easy! To need someone. To want them there every night, when you’ve gotten so good at being alone.”

“I know.” Luke echoes her words and means them. He didn’t even bother setting up a real bed here. It’s just a cot, just meant for one. 

“Maybe you’re the one who needs to talk to someone.” Leia teases.

“I will if you will.”

“Is that a promise?”

“It’s a bet.” Luke laughs, and he doesn’t realize that it makes him sound young for the first time in years.

He doesn’t realize that someone’s come back into Leia’s room, someone who’s left their cloak behind.

He doesn’t realize how much someone could miss his laughter.

A few days later, a ship lands near the new Jedi temple.

There’s a shift, not one like when his sister comes to call. Leia could move universe with the ripple of power that flows behind her, cloaks her like a shadow. No, the pilot of this ship brings with him a little twist of luck, a little shiver of danger, into Luke’s quiet life.

But he trusts, at that moment, that this is the right sort of danger. It’s easy to trust again, Luke realizes, as a Lando with a little more silver in his hair, a little less swagger in his step, exits the ship. 

Because he’s here. He came back to Luke, after all. His heart soars, insisting Luke was never wrong to trust, never wrong to have loved. From the first time they’d kissed, some dark and shadowed night between Cloud City and Jabba’s palace, to the last time they said goodbye, in a fancy hotel bed on Coruscant, Luke has always trusted Lando to make the right choice.

When that last choice had been made, Luke had thought it over.

Now, he sees that maybe it was just one misstep in a much longer game.

Luke runs toward the man and throws his arms around him. 

Trusting him to embrace him back.

When they kiss, as if it hasn’t been years, and light years, and countless moments of pain and loneliness between them, Luke knows this is one bet he’s won.

* * *

 

Lando stares down at his hand. He’s sitting in a rough-hewn chair, in a simple room, quite unlike the cosmopolitan places he’s been haunting for years. Haunting is a good word. It implies he’s no longer living, no longer someone who dwells among those who have normal lives, who wake up, work, eat, go to bed. Instead, Lando often feels like he’s floating, darting in and out of others’ lives, never settling down, never finding anything to keep him steady.

His luck hasn’t run out yet, which he’s glad of. His gambles have mostly paid off, and he has enough money to be comfortable.

But he's never won enough money to make a home.

Maybe such things can’t be bought. That’s what Han said. That sometimes, the things that matter, those can’t be won in a game of Sabaac or traded for at a marketplace. Sometimes, the things that matter have to simply be held on to, clung to, believed in.

If there’s anything Lando has ever believed in, it’s the man sitting across from him.

Luke hasn’t aged nearly as much as Lando thinks he himself has. His hair is still sandy blond, his eyes still bright. 

His smile still inviting.

Which leads Lando to one last game.

It’s a gamble, a big one. Maybe the biggest one he’s ever made because if he’s wrong, there’s no fixing this. It’s easy to win again with the next hand of cards, or turn the loss of a ship into the win of a city(ignoring the fact he loses the city again) but it’s harder to win again after losing a wager like this one.

The previous metal spins through his fingers, flashing brightly against dark skin.

Luke swallows.

Eons stretch between them.

Lando knows what he’s up against. Age old tradition, heartbreaks,  lives lived mostly apart and so many deaths between them.

But the gold still flashes between his fingers, and he keeps that smile on his face. Gambling.

* * *

 

Luke can’t believe how this moment unfolded. No amount of trust in another could ever suggest it. Not even the Force itself had warned Luke how his life might be changed.

It’s amazing, how one question, one tiny ring, could offer a chance to change everything.

The gold ring still spins through Lando’s hand. It represents a tradition that perhaps is older than even the Jedi, and much like the Jedi, not one many people follow anymore. It’s no good asking Lando where he got the ring, or even got the idea.

The man has his secrets.

But he also has a smile, brighter than the metal.

Not that he knows it.

And it’s the smile, not the ring, that Luke trusts.

A ring is just jewelry.

But Lando’s smile is home.

“I will,” Luke says.

* * *

 

Two words. Just like that, Lando knows, he's won, and he's lost, and he's so much richer than he's ever dreamed of being. Lost some freedoms, yes, lost the danger of always running away. Lost the ability to hide from love, to keep gambling his heart. But he's won so much more.  “You will what?” Lando teases, even as he’s moving the ring toward Luke’s hand.

“I’ll marry you, you incorrigible fool.”

“I’ll raise you one wager and marry you back.” Lando is too happy to worry if his words make sense. He laughs, and kisses his now-husband, holding him tighter than any gambler has clung to a lucky token. 

Lando doesn’t need luck. Not now. He’s found trust.

He’s found his home.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I was just trying out this ship to include as part of a multi-chapter fic I'm working on and this drabble appeared. oops.


End file.
